Wrap-around spider dorsal detail

A female Dolophones wrap-around spider was seen by chance recently in an urban setting. These spiders are masters of camouflage in a natural setting so in this context she was easier to see....but she did not make my task of documenting her easy as her resting place was in a really inaccessible and hard to get to place!

I hope I captured enough of her amazing dorsal detail for others to appreciate. Even better detail when enlarged. Amazing little spiders.

Dolophones is a genus of spider found primarily here in Australia and Oceania. There are 17 known and named species.

That's fantastic - you have no idea how hard it was to take this picture! It's a rule of mine to not disturb creatures, but I admit to a gentle tap with a long, thin twig in an attempt to encourage her to come out - of course all this did was make her hunker down even more and move higher up and away from the lens...duh. I've probably passed over many of these when I've had my head in the bushes - in their natural setting, so tightly pressed up against their resting twig and those markings are the best camo I've seen in a spider. Posted 6 months ago

What you describe is pretty much my macro anxiety...all the incredible species I walk by, completely missing them.

And not just arthropods, lots of other stuff too. In Colombia we once were in a viper hotspot. We found none. A team of scientist spent 5 full days in the same site, hoping to research them. They found none. I imagine we walked past dozens, even hundreds, completely unaware, yet them aware of us :)

No species identified

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